Alphabet’s recent lawsuit against Uber for patent infringement and stealing trade secrets may lead to a reevaluation of competition and intellectual property protection within the automobile industry.
According to PVMI Director John Paul MacDuffie,”These are trade secrets that are incredibly hot and at the heart of a fierce and fast-paced competition around an exciting new technology.” Driverless car technology is poised to prompt the automobile industry and associated technology companies to redesign their business models. MacDuffie anticipates that “we may end up with competition among a few companies or coalitions of companies that have different models of how they put the hardware and software together for driverless cars. What makes them win may not be being first; it may be some other attribute of performance.”